1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a heat pipe used in a computer assembly.
2. Description of Related Art
Most commercially available computers contain a fan that cools the components of the assembly. The fan is typically located in a wall of the computer chassis and is constructed to induce air flow across the various electronic packages of the computer.
To reduce the junction temperature of the electronic packages, the packages that generate the most heat are preferably located adjacent to the fan. Placing all of the hot components near the fan limits the routing of the printed circuit board and therefore is typically not feasible. Generally speaking, it is desirable to have a computer assembly, wherein the components can be located at any position within the computer chassis. For example, it may be desirable to place the central processing unit (CPU) and associated memory near the floppy and hard disk drives of the system, to reduce the length of the transmission lines between the various components. Having short transmission lines may be essential, particularly if the system operates at high speeds.
The hard and floppy disk drives are usually located on the front wall of the computer, so that the user can readily operate the floppy disk drive. For aesthetic reasons, the fan is typically located on the rear wall of the computer. With such an arrangement the fan must direct air across the entire chassis to cool the components located at the other end of the computer. Blowing air across the chassis reduces the velocity of the air and decreases the heat transfer rate from the electronic packages.
It would therefore be desirable to have a computer chassis with a rearwardly mounted fan that efficiently cools electronic packages located away from the fan. It would also be desirable to have a convection cooling system for a computer that can remove heat without direct contact between the electronic packages and the air stream of the fan, and which can efficiently utilize multiple fan units.